Town:

Santa Margalida

Ownership:

Public

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Phone:

971 18 53 63 (the Son Real public estate)

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Necròpolis de Son Real

The Son Real Necropolis is next to the sea, some 2 km to the south-east of Can Picafort in Santa Margalida. This Mallorcan archaeological site can be accessed from two points:

From the Son Bauló development (Can Picafort), where there is parking. From here you can enjoy a magnificent walk towards Son Serra de Marina, of no more than half an hour, until you reach the archaeological site.

From the Son Real estate, where the public estate’s interpretation centre is located. This is accessed from the MA‑12 road, 2.5 km after the last roundabout in Can Picafort, heading towards Artà. From there you can enjoy a pleasant outing by bicycle or on foot as far as the necropolis.

Once there you can enjoy exceptional natural surroundings, comprising dunes fixed by pine trees and Phoenician junipers. The cemetery occupies an area of some 1000 m2, where around 130 tombs and more than 400 burials have been recorded with the sea lapping by the graves.

Walking towards the headland where the necropolis is located, you will see various holes cut in the rock: this is all that remains of tombs that once occupied a larger area and that the sea has destroyed.

This necropolis is unique in Mallorca and the western Mediterranean. Many of the tombs resemble miniature navetas and talayots with round or square floor-plans. The buildings in this Mallorcan archaeological site started housing dead people from the 7th century Before the Common Era (bce) until the final years of the Talayotic period. It was last used around the 2nd century bce, when the burials were carried out in more modest rectangular graves, concentrated in the south-east sector.

Almost all of the tombs contain burials, but cremated remains are also recorded fromthroughout the last phase of the Balearic period, demonstrating that over time various burial rites were adopted and various types of graves were built.

Metal, bone, glass or pottery goods were left in the graves. It is interesting to note the presence of armaments and of possible musical instruments, as well as food remains from funerary banquets. This suggests that the burial rituals contributed to bonding the community of the living and connecting it with its ancestors.

The distinctiveness of the tombs and the objects of value that they contained strongly suggest that they were intended for the local elites, leaders, who possibly belonged to the community or communities close to the cemetery. In the area there are settlements from the periods mentioned, both around the current Son Real country houses, and in the entrance to Son Serra de Marina (the talayot of the Cova de sa Nineta).

Son Real was without doubt a special space, magical, intended for a chosen few who, generation after generation, were buried with the hope of starting a new life, a new life beyond what their eyes could see, beyond their world and the sea, before which the necropolis still resists the passage of time.